


Pulling Away

by softball45



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 2x23, Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, Post Episode: s02e23 Unthinkable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2003358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softball45/pseuds/softball45
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After what Oliver said at the mansion Felicity can't look at him the same way, she is broken and hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulling Away

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys like it.

It hurt when he said those three words. Felicity didn’t expect it to hurt. She had wanted him to say it for a while now but not the way he had. Oliver hadn’t meant it when he said I love you to her the night they took down Slade. It had just been a trick to out fox Slade. But it still hurt. More than she could imagine heartbreak would. She was sure he meant it even after he gave her the cure for Slade. When she was standing on Lian Yu talking to Oliver about it, it still felt like he meant it. Even now five months after he said it, it still felt like he meant it.

He didn’t mean it. He would never mean it. Felicity and Oliver could never be together. She had come to terms with that but her heart hadn’t. Her heart still skipped a beat whenever he would smile. When he would laugh her day suddenly got better. That smile would never be hers. That laughter would never be because of her. 

Oliver, Diggle, and her still protected the city every night. Some things changed. She wouldn’t watch Oliver work out like he used to. She would rush out of the foundry as soon as he was back safe. She was hoping he hadn’t noticed but of course he did. Oliver survived five years based on his senses so of course he noticed when Felicity acted different. He had tried to talk to her about it but she kept pulling away from him. 

At some point she would have to face him, tell him how it hurt, how inside she collapsed, how every time he glanced at her she was slowly crashing to the floor. But she picked up the pieces, one by one, and tried to rebuild. 

It was going to be impossible to fully recover from what Oliver had said. It would always be with her wherever she would go; those three words would walk around with her wherever she would go. The shadow that he had cast upon her would always be following her, reminding her of how it felt.

“Felicity we need to talk.” Oliver’s voice filled her ears. Felicity stopped pacing around the foundry. She was so busy thinking that she didn’t know that Oliver had walked in.

“I’m busy Oliver, I can’t talk.” Felicity shut him out once again.

“Busy pacing? Look I know you’ve been avoiding me, just let me know what I did wrong.” She still wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. She couldn’t stand face to face with him.

Felicity was about to storm off once again and run away from her problems. Oliver was ready to talk about what happened, it was time she face it. “Oliver I know that it was for the good of the city. I know that it wasn’t supposed to be personal. You had to do it; I’ve come to terms with that. Let’s just continue to do what we do best and save this goddamn city!”

Felicity was angry, so angry. Everything that had been pent up over the last five months was ready to come out. “Felicity you’re not making any sense. What happened?” How could Oliver be this stupid?

“You happened! You walked into my office with that goddamn bullet ridden laptop and you fucked me up. It hurt Oliver. When you told me… it hurt because I believed you. I fell for that bullshit and I thought it was real. I was a fool. It would never be real. It would never happen. But for a second those three words made me think that it was possible. That maybe once Slade was gone it would be possible. But it’s not, it never will be.” The anger that she had was gone now. All that was left was frustration and hopelessness. 

Felicity was frustrated with herself. She fell for his charm; she let him get to her. She was hopeless because she would always fall for it. Whenever he would look at her she was back at falling for him over and over again, endlessly falling in love with him again and again.

Oliver’s eyes softened. He finally understood what Felicity was going on about, he finally got it. He gave her a sympathetic look. That’s when her heart broke again. It was the same feeling as when he gave her the syringe for Slade, her heart shattered. He looked at her like she was a lost puppy who couldn’t find its owner. “Look, I know that we will never happen. So don’t think that I need you to be there, to help me, ‘cause I don’t. I’m fine, I just need some time to think.”

Felicity ran out of the foundry as fast as she could. She could barely breath when she finally got outside. It was a cool summer evening in Starling City. Felicity decided that she would walk around for a while. It was only 7:30 pm so it was too early to head home for the evening. 

It had been a while since Felicity got a moment to observe the city. After the destruction that Slade had caused was rebuilt, Starling City was actually a good place to live. Crime was down, life was good. This time last year Felicity would have to worry about someone coming up and mugging her. Now, no one would do that, everyone was doing well.

Felicity decided to take off her heels after the first ten minutes of walking. The pavement was cool beneath her feet as gently the warm summer breeze cooled her off. Summer was always Felicity’s favorite month. The sun would stay out later causing the temperature to be warm but not too hot in the evening. You could also hear the bugs chirping in the background. 

It was calming to Felicity. It sounded odd but the sound of thousands of insects wanting to get laid was beautiful to her. It was the underappreciated things that always drew her attention. People never think about what the world would be like without insects there. It’s the same with the Arrow. The city isn’t grateful for Oliver and what he does. The people don’t know how much he sacrifices himself for the city.

None of that mattered now. Felicity was done. She made a complete fool of herself in front of Oliver. She confessed how she felt about him and now she couldn’t reverse that. Moving to a new city wouldn’t be a big deal for her. One time she had to hack MIT’s computer system because she made a typo on a paper she sent to a professor. So this was nothing. Felicity hated embarrassing herself but she seemed to do that a lot.

Around 8:30 pm Felicity returned to the lair. When she arrived Oliver was standing in the same position, as he was when she left. It didn’t appear as if he had moved a muscle. As she brushed past him he still didn’t move. Once she was finally seated in what she had dubbed, her chair, Oliver finally moved. 

He walked over to where she was sitting and squatted next to her. She could feel his breath on the side of her neck but still she ignored him. Felicity kept typing at her computer mindlessly checking searches for any hits. For the following ten minutes they stayed like that, Felicity working while Oliver continued to stare at her.

She imagined that he was trying to figure out what to say to her. She didn’t want him to say anything because that would twist the dagger in her. Another confession by Oliver wouldn’t make anything better it would just make her want to leave more.

“Fucked me up? You couldn’t use any different words than I fucked you up.” Felicity almost let a laugh escape her mouth. Oliver was right she could’ve chosen better words than the fact that he had fucked her up.

She still couldn’t bear to see the look that filled his eyes. Would it be pity, sorrow, regret, anger? Felicity didn’t want to see how he felt about her. “Look, those three words… those three words were real,” Oliver stammered. Felicity’s head whipped towards him. She could see a glimmer of light fill his eyes. It was the first sign of hope or happiness she had seen in a while. 

“Oliver, you had to do the unthinkable to stop Slade. You had to confess a love for your IT girl when that would never actually happen. You said it yourself, we’re unthinkable.” Felicity was pulling away again. Even when he was trying to make things right she kept pulling away.

“I didn’t say that, you did. I was ready to confess to you on the beach but you just pulled away. I’ve tried to confess my love for you before but you don’t make it easy.” There was a smile on Oliver’s face. Oliver grabbed her hands in his. There was certain softness to his calloused hands. “We’re not unthinkable Felicity. The unthinkable is only unthinkable because people are too afraid to think it. But not us, we’re not unthinkable. Because I think about us everyday. Everyday I imagine my life with you, and what we could have. So we aren’t unthinkable, we are very well considered.”

Felicity couldn’t help but laugh. It was either laugh or burst into tears. Felicity stood up and pulled Oliver up with her. “I love you Felicity Smoak. I always will.”

Felicity couldn’t hold back any more. She closed the distance between her and Oliver. What awaited her was not what she expected. The kiss was all she ever hoped it would be. It was perfection. It seemed as if Oliver’s lips tried to cover every part of her and he had managed to do that. The thing Felicity noticed was that his face was wet. Under his eyes there were streaks of water. She wanted to wipe away every last one of those streaks. Erase them because from here on out they had each other and there would never be anymore crying.


End file.
